Les Patins de Hockey

Luke 2:1-14

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

What is the BEST thing about Christmas?  No, not Jesus, but to be fair, that IS the answer to 99% of questions asked in church!  What’s the Best thing about Christmas?  Friends and family?  No.  Friends and only select members of the family?  No.  But maybe closer.  Food, lights, music, tree?  Nope.  You clearly need help.  Bishop… what is… the best thing about Christmas?  (THE PRESENTS!)  That is correct!  The best thing about Christmas is the presents!  Do you remember the best present you ever got?  Mine came one Christmas, way back in the days when phones were all attached to the wall with wires.  

The summer before that Christmas, my family had moved from Florida to New Jersey and my parents had bought a house on a little lake.  The guys in the neighborhood talked non-stop about playing hockey.  They couldn’t wait until the lake froze over.  It was so hard to wait they played street hockey every day in anticipation.  My new friends had me so excited about ice hockey I couldn’t wait either!  There was one problem.  This Florida kid had no “patins de hockey.”  Those were the words on the side of every unattainable box of hockey skates in the sporting goods store.  All I wanted for Christmas was Les Patins de hockey!  

That year the lake froze MONTHS before Christmas… maybe it was really weeks… okay, maybe days… but a torturing time none the less!  No amount of hinting or begging would get me my hoped-for Patins de Hockey early.  In fact, my mom made a point of saying she had no idea if that would even BE one of my presents!  Each day was torture!  But then… it came.  Christmas Eve!  The night we opened family presents… BUT ONLY after church, after the Swedish Julbord dinner, and AFTER my sister and I had cleaned the kitchen!   

FINALLY, we opened our presents but NOT ONE of my presents that night was Patins de Hockey!  I went to bed in a near total panic.  BUT… there was one last hope.  That’s right… Santa.  Santa might still come through with Patins de Hockey where my cruel parents had utterly failed.  Morning came and there beside the fire were presents, wrapped in the paper only Santa used.  Of course my sister and I couldn’t just dive in like maniacs.  We had to wait for mom and dad to wake up… SLOWLY.  Then to make coffee… SLOWLY.  THEN to gather by SLOWLY.  Finally I picked the most promising looking box and peeled the paper off one end.  There under the wrapping I saw the words slowly reveiled… Patins de Hockey.  Santa had come through.  

So at that point what did I do?  I just put them in the box, taped it up and stuck them in a attic with the rest of Christmas, right?  Heck NO I didn’t!  I put them on and skated!  I skated on that lake.  I skated in hockey leagues.  I even skated as Bananas the Bear, the mascot of the University of Maine between periods of a college hockey game!  I unwrapped and put that gift to use like no other gift, before or since!  And THAT my friends, is this Christmas sermon’s take home message.  

We’ve each been given this incredible gift called LIFE and on Christmas we are given the additional gift of the ONE who shows us how to live this life… not as a day to day slog but with joy filled abundance!  That way of living this life is called the Jesus Way!  It’s not a dogma… although sometimes dogma can help.  It’s not a particular denomination or church… although community always helps.  It’s not something you get with a magic conversion or a particular prayer.  Nope. 

The Jesus Way is a way to live this life using Jesus’ life as a model.  The Jesus way is a life lived in kindness, compassion, generosity, and love.  A life with good, healthy boundaries and always speaking the truth, even when the truth is hard for people to hear.  It’s a life lived caring for all of our neighbors no matter who they are, what they look like, or who they love.  It’s a life lived feeding the hungry, healing the sick… Seeing… really SEEING those people around us who are considered by the world to be the least, and the lost.  It’s a life of being the voice of those who have no voice and lifting them into the life of dignity and abundance that God created all of us to live.  

The best thing about Christmas IS the presents!  Particularly the gift of LIFE and the Christ child who shows us how to live the heck out of this life we've been given!  So this Christmas, don’t pack the life you’ve been given away with all the other Christmas stuff.  This year, keep this life you’ve been given out and give a go live the heck out of it the Jesus Way… with compassion, generosity, care for your neighbor and love for everyone you meet.  Live this next year THAT way… the Jesus Way… no matter what might be happening all around you… live it like Jesus showed us to live it and what you’ll find, is that each day you live that way it will feel like Christmas all over again.  Amen.  

Don't Mess with Mary!

Luke 1:46b-55

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Today we’re taking a new look at Mary.  Neither through a Roman Catholic lens nor a Protestant lens (which is typically an over reaction to the Catholic lens).  We’re certainly NOT going to look at Mary through an evangelical lens which turns her into a model for women to be submissive, meek, and mild and do what they’re told.  Today we’re going to do our best to look at Mary through this text alone.  

The text beings with the angel Gabriel saying, “Greetings favored one!  The Lord is with you.”  The angel continues with “Do not be afraid,” an understandable and very standard angel greeting.  But here’s the thing… the text doesn’t say that MARY was afraid at all.  The text says Mary was PERPLEXED, yes, but that’s very different from afraid.  She wasn’t cowering, meek, or submissive here in any way.  Confused a bit, yes, BECAUSE THERE WAS A FREAKIN’ ANGEL IN HER ROOM, but fully in her higher, thinking brain.

  

It’s also clear from the text that the angel isn’t forcing anything onto Mary but is simply passing on the message that God has noticed Mary.  Noticed her NOT for her meekness, looks, or even her available uterus… but for her GRACE.  It was the courage and boldness she already possessed that found Gods favor.  It was her faith… her trust that the God of justice WOULD ACT in her world… THAT’S what God saw.  Her own passion for lifting the lowly and scattering the proud... THAT is what God both noticed and honored that day. 

It’s also important, as we take this new look at Mary, to see what’s NOT in the text.  The text has NO mention of Mary’s age and the word we translate as a “virgin” is a very particular word in the original Greek.  It refers ONLY to a person who has not yet had a child.  Nothing more than that.  All the rest of Mary’s intimate life details we've heard over the years are bits of made up tradition that people (mostly men if we're honest) have added to the story for reasons far beyond and often contradicting what’s in the text.

As the encounter with the angel draws to a close, it’s VERY important to see that agreeing to carry the Christ child, ONLY happens with Mary’s informed consent.  She doesn’t give a cowering yes.  She gives the angel some hard questions.  She doesn’t just go along submissively.  She was an active, informed participant in God’s work, just as she had been before the angel arrived.  In the end, it was HER decision to say, “let it be with me according to your word”...  it was only Mary’s “YES” that moved things along and I am quite sure that if Mary had said “NO,” God would have honored that choice as well, because THIS is a God of justice!  These things are why using Mary’s story as justification to date underage girls or permission to ignore a woman’s choice is not only an abuse of the text, but is also blaspheming the genuine nature of this God of justice!

  

And it's in this text that we so clearly hear Mary proclaim THAT particular nature of God!  It’s in that Magnificat where we see how God’s nature matches the independent, strong willed, revolutionary nature of Mary.  When Elizabeth proclaimed Mary “blessed” it wasn’t just because of who was in her womb, but because, as the text tells us, Mary was one who doggedly believed God would fulfill God’s promise of justice for the world!

It was in that spirit that Mary let loose with The Magnificat… which is nothing less than the ultimate political manifesto, proclaiming the fall of the wealthy, proud, and powerful and the rise of the poor, hungry, and forgotten of the world.  It has remained such a perfect insistence on JUSTICE as the will of God, that The Magnificat has been banned by three governments over the years for being too revolutionary. 

Over the centuries, people have attempted to tame Mary, but Mary isn’t anyone who will be tamed!  She’s an independent, clear thinking, justice-oriented woman in charge of her own comings and goings, in charge of her own mind and in charge of her own body.  She’s clear about what she values and was willing to collaborate with God in a unique, new, way to move the world toward her and God’s shared values of justice, compassion, and peace.  

She’s a powerful model for ministry, demonstrating a faithfulness so strong it drew God’s favor.  She's also a powerful model for discerning God’s call.  She shows us the importance of not simply accepting any new idea that just happens along without question, but also the importance of being open to God doing a new thing… both of which require listening, questioning, and reflecting.  

She was neither tricked nor intimidated into bringing Christ into the world.  She saw, after genuine discernment, bringing Christ into the world to be her next opportunity to collaborate with God to bend the arc of the moral universe toward the justice God intends for the world... the same justice she had embraced long before any angel showed up on the scene.  She is blessed.  But blessed for being willing to bring God’s light into the darkness in a new way.  Blessed for her powerful witness to God’s desire for justice which, even today, continues to humble the proud, bring down the powerful, fill the hungry, and lift up the lowly. 

May you and I be blessed, as Mary is blessed, by embracing God's desire for justice as Mary did.  May we be just as confident as Mary, that God's will for justice and peace WILL reign and may we, like Mary, find our way to  collaborate with God in bringing God’s reign of justice to earth as it is in heaven.  Amen.  

Thanks to Ben Wildflower for the artwork!

Asps... Very Dangerous... You Go First

Luke 3:7-18

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 

In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

John T. Baptist hated snakes.  The trouble was… his world was chock full of em’!  That’s because once the snakes came to power, nobody, it seemed, could beat ‘em… and if you can’t beat ‘em… people figured they might as well join ‘em.  It seemed to be the way of the Roman reptilian world.  That’s why, when folks showed up to hear what John T. Baptist had to say, the first thing he did was hold up a giant mirror and tell the crowd to look at themselves.  You brood of vipers!  Y’all are de-volving!  You’re living each day, more and more like a snake… much less than God created you to be!

The people knew he was right.  They felt themselves slipping deeper into the snake pit every day, but the folks who stuck around to hear the rest of what John T. Baptist had to say were the ones who still didn’t like it.  They knew it wasn’t right.  They knew it in their guts.  They knew God had given them spines for standing up, not slithering around!  But it was hard!  Lots of people in power, and a great number of ordinary folks back then decided to get a gut-ectomy and their spines removed in order to slither with the brood.   

BUT, there were folks who felt themselves being sucked into the Serpentocracy who wished… hoped… even prayed it could be different.  They REALLY WANTED life to be different… but they were scared to be honest in a world that ran on dishonesty… how would they even get by?  They were hemmed in by fear.  Their dreams of running away and living a new life among the Visigoths SOUNDED wonderful, but it wasn’t reality.  They were stuck, like Indiana Jones and Marilyn in the Well of the Souls… surrounded by asps (very dangerous) with just one torch… and it was going out. 

When my psychology friend, Kevin Polk, talks to people who are stuck like that, he invites them to imagine they are all bus drivers.  Each one with their own bus.  He asks them, “if you weren’t afraid, WHO would you drive your bus toward?  If you weren’t afraid, WHAT would be the names of the towns you’d put in the GPS?  Would you drive toward a spouse… kids… friends?  Would you put in town names like Honesty, Kindness, Hospitality and such?  If you had a bus and you weren’t afraid, you’d drive toward the people you love, wouldn’t you?  Toward some town that promised to give life and not take it away?” wouldn’t you?  “Sure BUT” you say… the fear IS here and real!  All my fears are like a menacing, zombie-like horde all wearing matching trucker hats!  Every single fear I’ve ever had is out there!  Even my smallest, most insignificant fear is out there in that horde!

THAT is what those people who came out to see John T. Baptist felt, living in their “Brood of Vipers” world.  They each had a bus, sure, but it was completely hemmed in by this fear mongering horde!  THIS, your fears told them, is how it will always be!  There is no place to go!  No changing it now!  “We LIKE that you don’t like it”, the fears told their people, “but HEY! at least you know us!  We grew up with you!  Can’t we just be friends again?”  The tax collectors who came out to see John had already given up.  Same with the soldiers.  They were stuck because the brood of vipers signed their paychecks.  If they left that way of life… the way of the serpent… their families would LITERALLY starve!  How could they EVER drive a bus toward what they valued… toward the people they loved! 

 

The brilliance of John T. Baptist was that did not have them focus on their final destination, but on just… one… next… small… step.  He didn’t tell the tax collectors to stop collecting taxes.  He told them to collect no more than was prescribed.  He didn’t tell the soldiers to desert the Roman army.  He told them stop shaking down the locals!  But for them, even moving an inch while being surrounded by such a horde of fears shouting at them, “How will you make a living?  How will your family eat?  This is the way it’s always been done” was hard.  The people knew this isn’t how the world SHOULD work, but they also knew this was how it DID work.  “So how, Mr. John T. Baptist… HOW do we move our bus forward when we are completely surrounded…  not by little, silly, insignificant fears, but by huge, genuine fears, created by very real and very powerful snakes?  Should we wait for the Brood to disperse on their own?”  No, because the truth is,  fears never go away on their own.  We know that too, don’t we?  Don’t LIKE it, but we know it.  

So, John told them… here’s how you do it.  You invite that whole horde of fears onto your bus.  THAT’S why you have a bus!  You invite them on your bus.  They are happy because they are still with you, right?  But now that they’re on the bus, guess where they aren’t?  Blocking your way!  So start driving!  Yeah, once they realize it, they will probably make a giant fuss in the back but by then it's too late!  You're driving your bus toward what you value… toward the people you love… toward the Kingdom of God… toward really living again, or maybe toward beginning to live for the very first time.  

Now, I hear you out there… You say “that sounds hard?”  Darn tootin, it’s hard!  Pertinear impossible even!  But wait… There’s more!  You see, there is ONE more powerful than John T. Baptist.  One whose sandals John wasn’t worthy to untie, and it is with THAT ONE on your side that you will have all you need to get your bus moving… even just an inch or two at a time… even with inelegant clutch work… even with all your fears hollerin’ their trucker-cap-wearing heads off in the back… It is with that ONE that you will have what you need to drive each moment of your life… even just a little bit at a time… toward the people you love and the ways of life you value and it is THAT ONE who will be with you single inch of the way.  Amen. 

Dissipation its Making Me Wait

Luke 21:25-36

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Drunkenness, worries, and dissipation.  Apparently three long-time ways to handle this crazy world.  Dissipation though, I had to look up.  It’s wasting stuff or squandering things.  It’s basically running around like a chicken with your head cut off!  All three are as temping today as in Jesus’ time!  After all you can easily find stories today so dark they blot the sun out in the sky and tell you about distress among nations!  The noise of hatred is deafening.  Noise so loud it’s like the roar of the sea!  Like a never ending set of waves crashing over us, knocking us off our feet, over and over again with wave after wave of horrors in Israel and Gaza, racism, hatred, cruelty and all the rest. It makes us faint from fear and foreboding.

To get a break from it all, folks then and now turn to what the experts call maladaptive coping strategies.  Folks try to drink it, shop it, medicate it, or eat it away.  I saw someone on facebook putting up their Christmas tree before Thanksgiving in an attempt to “decorate” their troubles away!  Escape, in all it’s many forms is one of the ways we try and cope.  

Another method people use for coping is to slam the brakes on the world, trying to convert any forward momentum into heat and try to stop the world in some delusional, idealistic past.  A time when memories radically mis-remember that things were better… the world wasn’t as confusing… back to a time when things were GREAT.  Unfortunately, brakes work by using “dissipation” and when folks slam on the world’s brakes, all that progressive energy, inevitably gets turned into white-hot heat which is then thrown out into the world in the form of hatred, anger, bigotry, racism, violence and rage.

This might surprise you, but neither escaping the world nor dissipating the world’s crazy turn out to be the Jesus Way.  Neither then nor now.  Instead, Jesus says the way to deal with an off the rails world, is to STAND UP, RAISE YOUR HEADS, LOOK UP and SEE your redemption drawing near… We need to… LOOK UP.  We need to LEAN IN.  And we need to LIVE! 

Every alert of breaking news draws our heads down into our phones, drawing us deeper into the depths.  Heads down, diving deeper, we fester in the horribleness… don’t we?  Jesus tells us instead to “LOOK UP!” Because when we raise our heads and look up, what we’ll see is Christ… present among us… standing right beside us in the eyes of our neighbors… even in the midst of all this mess!  And in some mysterious way that I can NOT figure out for the life of me…  when we look up we are promised a glimpse of God in Christ, making something new! 

But LOOKING UP requires practice… training… repetition… exercise.  We get a little bit of just that when we give each other a sign of God’s peace.  We LOOK UP… We LEAN IN and WE SEE Christ in the eyes of the people we greet.  In one another’s eyes, we’re reminded again and again that we are not alone.  

We'll get another bit of practice when some striking bald fellow holds up the chalice and patten at the alter today.  THAT invites us to look up… to get another REP of LOOKING UP practice from the worries of the world so that we can SEE, in some mysterious way, that Christ really is RIGHT HERE… RIGHT HERE with us in the bread and wine, transforming this crazy-train of a world even now with light and love and life.  

It also happens when we shout, “Thanks be to God, Alleluia, Alleluia!” at the end of our worship. Because with that shout we LOOK UP, we see the Body ofChrist rising all around us.  When we LEAN IN we see Christ alive in the eyes of our neighbors and when we hear one another shout Alleluia! We’re both inspired and empowered, not to try and ESCAPE the world or stop the world and get off, but to jump right INTO THE WORLD… right smack dab into the deep end of the crazy, and SHOW the world what it looks like to really LIVE this life we’ve been given!  We shout “Alleluia!” because God has chosen US, and calls US all to cannonball into this pond we call life and let the ripples of kindness, compassion, generosity and love radiate out from this place far beyond where we might ever be able to see or imagine. 

The world doesn’t need us hiding in fear. The world doesn’t need us trying to grind it to a stop. The world doesn’t need us looking for signs in the stars or the moon or in headlines or in breaking news.  What the world needs… is for each and every one of us to LOOK UP, LEAN IN, AND LIVE the life we’ve been given as a gift from God. To jump into the world with an Alleluia cannonball that will soak all of creation from head to toe with the power of God’s love, transforming even this current world’s nut-job caused awful-ness into the life of abundant joy for ALL of creation that God made us to live! Our call for this Advent is to LOOK UP, LEAN IN, AND LIVE! Amen.

Big Dragons and Woud-be Kings

John 18:33-37 

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Revelation 1:4b-8

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

Pilate, for all his faults, asked the right question.  It’s the same question we’re being asked today.  That question?  What sort of King is this Jesus guy anyway?  Pilate wanted to know if Jesus was an “overthrow the Roman government” kind of King… or had he just been labeled a “King” by local enemies hoping Pilate would do their dirty work for them… or maybe he was simply a “figurehead King” to a group of nut jobs.  What sort of King was Jesus to Pilate?  What sort of King is Jesus to you?

For Pilate, if Jesus was an “overthrow the Empire” kind of King, that was easy.  Crucify him!  Boom. Done.  On the other hand, if Jesus was being set up by other political powers in town, or had become the figurehead king of a bunch of nut jobs, then Pilate needed to decide what to do with Jesus that would make is life easier.  Pilate didn’t care about what was right or just or fair… just how much aggravation or assistance each options might give him. 

You and I face the very same question about Jesus and all the would-be kings that we encounter.  We are constantly presented with people, ideas, and things that we are told should be our KING.  From Burger King to the King of Beers.  From leaders benevolent, to Book of Revelation Beasties.  From looking after me, myself, and I to loving the least, the lost, and the last.  There are literally a Legion of would-be kings asking, begging, or demanding that we bow down to them and that means that we, like Pilate, need to decide what to do with each and every one.

For us Christians neither the king of burgers nor the king of beers is worthy to be our king.  For us, neither the benevolent earthly ruler nor the dragon of Revelation are worthy to be our king.  For us, only the One… who is, and who was, and who is to come, is worthy to be our King.  Only Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom… all of us… a kingdom of priests serving his God and Father…  ONLY THAT ONE is worthy of having dominion forever and ever… only that ONE is worthy to be OUR King. 

So what does that mean for us?  What that means for us is that Jesus is Lord.  That also means that Caesar… is NOT.  What that means for us is that we follow in Jesus’ footsteps and not in Caesar’s footsteps.  What that means for us is that loving God and loving our neighbor is the Way we are to walk through this life 24/7 because Christ our King has pointed us on that WAY and because Jesus is Lord… and Caesar is NOT we Christians GO where Jesus points.  NOT where Caesar points.  

What that means for us is that loving God and loving our neighbor is the TRUTH.  Love is the true and supreme power in the universe.  Love is what brought all things into being.  Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but it  REJOICES… it REJOICES in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.  LOVE, says our King, is the TRUTH and everyone who belongs to the TRUTH listens to Jesus’ voice. 

What that means for us is that loving God and loving our neighbor is what gives us LIFE.  Jesus’ Way gives us life… Caesar’s way does NOT.  Jesus TRUTH gives us life… Caesar’s truth does NOT.  Jesus way gives life.  The way of power does not.  The way of greed does not.  The way of manipulation, lies, selfishness, and pride do NOT give us life.  Only the Jesus Way… only the Way of Christ our King… gives us life… and gives us that life as a completely free gift!  Up front.  Without condition.  Only then… with that gift both given and received might we grow to a place where we want to give thanks for that gift.  Christ our King tells us if we are ready to give things, we can do that by passing on the unconditional love we first received to others around us with the same recklessness that God first loved us.  

Both the Gospel lesson for today and today’s reading from Revelation tell us a piece of some of the very darkest times for both Jesus and the early church.  Neither of these lessons pull any punches on that darkness.  Neither lesson sugar coats the realities of those days nor do they attempt to put lipstick on the pig, trying to put a happy face on something that in reality is big, dirty, and just plain nasty!  But neither of these lessons are the end of the story either.  

You and I both know that these stories first get even darker… much, much darker and in every season of our lives we face the possibility of our lives getting much darker as well.  We do people no favors telling them to pretend it isn’t dark when it is!  If it’s dark, it’s dark!  We are people of truth!  It needs to be acknowledged.  It needs to be named… AND once it is acknowledged and named, Jesus tells us that THEN will be the time to turn to our neighbor and say, “Look! He is coming with the clouds; right into the darkness.  Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him… SO IT IS TO BE.  So it is to be.  Amen.